We’ve all been taught to believe the Apocalypse will be one big cataclysmic event measured in time by hours and days instead of weeks and months. But another theory is that it will happen slowly over time; so slowly in fact we may not even realize it’s happening.

That’s what’s happened with the great American music blog over 2015. The body count has been spread over so many months, and with other potentially more important things to occupy the mind, few have noticed.

And contributing to the apathy of what is happening is the thought that it may not even matter. With the advent of music streaming, consumers can peruse the entire canon of recorded music on their own and make their own choices when it comes to what to listen to. Artist profiles, live reviews, and long-winded think pieces? Many people are too busy for that these days. Many newspapers went the way of the dinosaur—with blogs partly to blame—and society kept functioning along just fine. So perhaps it will be the same for the blog. Except blogs don’t appear to be getting replaced by anything, except maybe direct interactions between labels, publicists, artists, and the consumer, with no 3rd party to check the validity of the information being delivered, or to offer any perspective or opinion.

On Tuesday (11-17), a small, one-man blog called Country California announced it would be ceasing operations after seven years. Though this development may not affect many everyday country fans, the site fulfilled some very necessary functions within the music community that in all likelihood will not be replaced by anyone else now that it’s gone. Country California had taken up the function of aggregating news from around the internet—a function a site called The 9513 fulfilled for many years before it went defunct. Then Juli Thanki, now a staff writer for The Tennessean stared Engine 145 which fulfilled the same function before she moved on. Country California also rounded up quotes from around the country realm on a weekly basis, which resulted in original articles on many of music sites, including Saving Country Music.

Country California was at first an ad-based site, but then switched over to using the donate-style Paetron model. Though the site’s revenue increased with the new model, the time one must put into maintaining a blog or music website always becomes the hurdle unless the pay somehow becomes enough to justify the effort expended.

And that’s the biggest problem with many music-based websites and blogs. It’s not that they aren’t fulfilling a necessary function in the music community to where they deserve to go extinct, or are not beloved, or even creating enough attention for themselves that they’re worthy institutions which deserve to survive. The problem is there’s no significant revenue source for many such websites, and the problem has become significantly worse with the wide proliferation of ad blockers being used by many web browsers.

Think about picking up a newspaper, or a magazine with absolutely no ads and no cover price. It may be a less cluttered reading experience, but there’s no way to generate revenue for the publisher. That is the new world of web publishing many music sites, and other blogs and websites are facing in 2015. In October, NPR’s On Point explored how ad blockers, mobile users, and bots are “gutting the economic viability of the internet.”

“Apple’s latest mobile operating system invites Internet users on iPads and phones to skip the ads,” says On Point. “Block them. Less wait for what you want. Less data consumption. Quicker loading. But also another blow to the economics of a whole lot of big players on the web. For many, it’s no ads, no money.”

PC users, especially Google Chrome users have been using Ad Blockers for years. As Investopedia explains, “Blocking ads can make or break a website, and even threaten the online business industry as a whole. Ads are the bread and butter for websites. They pay for the website’s infrastructure, operations, content and the payments to associated staff. Free content is accompanied by ads. That’s the implicit and undocumented deal between the visitor and the website. Blocking ads can force your favorite websites out of business. You may no longer continue to be able to access its resources. The site owners may move to new ventures, but you as the end user will lose your preferred resource.”

All across the internet, were seeing the dissolving or downgrading of sites that appeal to niche audiences, offer longer-form content, or that assume an intelligent audience, while sites that focus on viral content, such as Buzzfeed, thrive. Other legacy news-based sites like CNN must focus more on viral content, and celebrity-based stories as well. Only sites that are able to generate massive amounts of traffic can fulfill simple economic needs to continue to function because so little revenue is being generated from each user. Meanwhile the loss of revenue is forcing some website owners to double up on ads, or to use video streaming ads or pop ups to help recuperate lost revenue, cluttering up the internet even more for folks who choose to not use ad blockers. Too many ads becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy.

In 2015, we’ve seen a dramatic reshifting in the web publishing space. Major legacy blogs like ESPN’s Grantland have closed down. Though labor issues with the writing staff was the specific reason cited for the site closing down, it all started with a concern from the staff that they were being under-appreciated in the ESPN family. Since viral content is the only economically-viable content on the web, Grantland and it long-form think pieces were seen as expendable.

Though the verbiage coming from these independent entities being bought up by bigger companies is that the content won’t change, it still puts the power of publishing in fewer hands, and speaks to the economic weakness of these entities that they must partner or sell to others potentially to survive.

Jeff Weiss of the 10-year-old hip-hop site Passion of the Weiss said it best in an interview Smashd right before the sales of Pitchfork and The Village Voice went down in October.

“Music blogs are basically dead. With a few notable exceptions, most bloggers switched to increasingly shorter-form writing first Tumblr, then Twitter. Or they got hired to write at bigger established publications that could afford to cover their electricity bill. For a while, it seemed like Blog Ads and Indie Click could support the network of sites getting low six-figure monthly page views, but then once Facebook and Twitter and the Buzzfeed model entered the picture, it became clear either get a corporate patron, start making lists, or get out of the game. Those who stayed are mostly doing it because we’re obsessives and hate quitting but I think it’s also because we love music and writing about music, and helping to break new artists.”

As Jeff Weiss points out, interest in music sites and blogs is not necessarily what is causing the death of such sites. You can have websites with hundreds of thousands of unique readers each month, and page views nearing or surpassing a million, who cannot pay their basic utility bills. Meanwhile a print magazine with a circulation of 30,000 can employ multiple people because they can guarantee their ads will be seen. The problem is, many print magazines have gone out of business because of online outlets.

What this means is the American music consumer is left with no alternative except for direct communication with artists, labels, and the industry, with no third-party accountability. As Saving Country Music pointed out in the article “Music Journalism Is Dying at the Hands of PR Firms,” many of the journalists and writers who are losing their jobs working for web and print publishers big and small are moving into the publicity side of the music business. Many PR firms are setting up their own publishing entities so they can speak directly with consumers and cut unbiased journalism out of the equation. And “sponsored content,” where an advertiser will write an article in the same form of a journalist, only advertising an event, artist, or product—a way to circumvent ad blockers—is blurring the lines between ads and news like never before.

And all of this could hurt independent, and small-time artists looking to get noticed more than it will larger, major label artists. Same goes for the fans of these artists. As Jeff Weiss of Passion of the Weiss points out, independent music sites can be essential to breaking new artists. And as Investopedia points out, “Ad blocking may result in an uneven field of competition. For example, a million-dollar business can partner with a popular adblocker company and get its ads white-listed. A smaller publisher may not have that bandwidth, and continue to take the hit with eventual results of being shut down.”

Losing music blogs and websites for more economically-viable or technologically savvy replacements is one thing. Replacing them with nothing, and having the music industry itself fill in the void through bias, paid content could result in much bigger issues than no good place to read about your favorite bands.

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Editor’s Note: This article is not a solicitation for alms, support, donations, compliments, commiseration, or anything similar. This issue not only affects websites like Saving Country Music, but scores of sites that cover music and other topics that will fall to the wayside unless the greater economic issues can be resolved and resort in sustainable business models for all journalistic entities.

80 Comments

Well, I question how you could read this entire article and still comment so quickly ;).

But the thing is, doing a pledge drive or something similar would only result in a short-term stimulus for a site, and not solve the long-term economic concerns many websites big and small are facing because of the new paradigm. Journalism has always been supported by advertising. And that’s what keeps it cheap or free to the consumer. I started Saving Country never wanting to charge a red penny to readers. I’d probably rather shut it down.

Another lesson from the loss of the blog Country California is that a donation-style model can possibly be more lucrative in the short-term, but still may not be economically viable in the long-term.

Another reason that I personally have resisted going to a donation-based system is them all of a sudden you have donators demanding things from you. The reason a site like Saving Country Music works is because it is independent. At some point I am going to say something that eventually pisses off every single person on the planet. If I’m beholden to advertisers or donators, the reason folks come here–brutally honest music coverage—might go away. So third-party-filled advertisement is about the only way to go.

But again, this is not about Saving Country Music necessarily. This is about many of your favorite sites, big and small, music based or otherwise. There has to be an economic model for viable, long form, and intelligent content, or it will go away.

I appreciate your stance but I think one thing that could be pointed out more is that people that want to support this site or others that they like can do so by using the Amazon portal that appears on the upper right hand side of the site on the sidebar.

I have seen many sites that periodically remind their readers about this and I see nothing wrong with doing so.

For people that want to help and support sites that they enjoy this is a pain free way to do so.

Usually every Black Friday ( which is coming up, incidentally), I send out a missive through social network reminding folks about the Amazon program, and I’ll probably do that again this year. But this really isn’t about me trying to figure out how to make my particular model work. In some ways, Saving Country Music is in a more fortunate position than others, though there are certainly still struggles. But in the end I believe it is my job to figure out how to keep the site economically viable, not my readers.

My biggest concern is that as an internet user, and as a patron of sites like Country California, is that if these sites continue to go away, the internet will be a much less enjoyable and enriching place. And if all that’s left is Buzzfeed and TMZ, how is this going to affect the perspective of society?

Yeah, I understand what you were saying and I was a regular reader of Country California and would comment there occasionally so when I saw the news earlier this week I was saddened because there have been many things that I first heard about through his Quotable Country feature.

I was just offering a friendly reminder to my fellow regulars here that there is a way to support this site in a pretty pain free way by doing something that most these days do rather commonly (shop through Amazon).

I’ve been checking on your website from time to time for years. It seems to be doing fine. When I first saw the logo I had doubts as it looks like one of the tattoos those faux-country boys would get(the ones you so vehemently denounce just saying). But your writing is quite intelligent if not a little too thoughtful, you try too hard to be on the right and unbiased side of any argument when you obviously have a wholehearted opion one way. Does saving country music have a staff of writers or is it one man crusading by himself?
How much overhead is there to run a blog or is it the time? That is an honest question not a jab at SCM. I really like the articles and agree with you 95% of the time. Anyway I will try to donate and support SCM anyway I can, just don’t sell out your values(Eric church ad). Fight the good fight.

Um, well there’s a lot of concerns and questions you bring up here. As for the logo, it’s been around for a long time, before many of the faux-country boys you’re referring to were even around, so if anything, they’re the ones jumping on a bandwagon. Not sure what you mean by saying I try too hard to be unbias when I clearly am not. Those statements seems to be contradictory, but whatever. The writing staff is a staff of one, though there has been contributors upon occasion. There is very specific overhead costs to running a site like Saving Country Music. The server itself costs a lot of money. I’m not really inclined to divulge how much, but since SCM is not a static site and receives large amounts of traffic, it is a very high cost, and still the server could be bigger to deal with the load at certain times. It also costs money for folks to help maintain the site. I’m not looking or asking for donations whatsoever, and I can’t reiterate that enough. Once again, this was an article about a trend in the industry, NOT about SCM specifically. A lot of folks assume I’m begging for money with this article when I really should be doing it for the love of the music. First off, I’m not begging. Second off, they have absolutely no idea in the very specific hard non-negotiable costs in keeping a site like this up. If the site did not make money, it would not exist. Period.

As for selling out with the Eric Church ad: As I’ve explained numerous times: They reached out to me, and I ignored them. Then they reached out to me again, and I told them “no.” Then they reached out a third time, and at that point I felt like I would be insulting if I told them no. And don’t take my word for it. Reach out to Eric Church’s peeps if you want. They wanted to put that specific ad on this specific site.

Now think for a second how many hundreds of positive articles I’ve written for artists on Thirty Tigers over the years. Think of how many dozens of articles I’ve written for specific artists on Thirty Tigers like Sturgill Simpson and Jason Isbell. Then think about all the dozens of articles I’ve written for artists on Bloodshot, New West, Rounder, Red House, dozens of other labels, and hundreds of other artists. Think of all the coverage I’ve written for Whitey Morgan, Hank3, all the legends like Willie and Merle. And you know how much those labels and artists have spent advertising on Saving Country Music? $0.00 over the last eight years. Not a single red penny. But Eric Church, ERIC CHURCH, who I’ve flamethrown numerous times on this site by name, felt inclined to reach out and support Saving Country Music.

So I don’t think I should be the one whose priorities should be questioned.

I started a blog called Psycho Ramlin’ Country. I did full reviews of albums and live shows with some videos. I had some success, but never really got it off the ground in the year I had it going as far as daily hits go. The only time I ever saw a spike is when my articles got shared by the artist I was writing about. I decided to close it eventually because of the time commitment and expense of running such a blog. I had fun doing it, but it is a lot of work to run something like that solo and I’ve enjoyed being a more casual fan in the time since I had it.

One of the biggest concerns is for startup sites. Luckily, a site like Saving Country Music already has somewhat of a foothold. But if you wanted to start a new site today and cover a segment of American music nobody else is paying attention to, it would be ten times harder than it was for me eight years ago. This is going to result in certain scenes and bands never being able to get off the ground because there’s no third parties to cover them.

As for artists sharing articles written about them through social network, believe it or not, this is part of the problem. I intend to write something about this as well soon, but in the end, this doesn’t serve anyone’s best interests. The fans of a particular band being told to go read about them on some website is ultimately doing the band no good because those fans are already connected with that band. Then you have big corporate sites like Rolling Stone making lists of small-time bands as “ones to watch” with really very little meat to the content. Then these bands then dutifully post these lists to their social network, and the only one who truly benefits is the big corporate blog. Sure, there’s some cross pollination of music interests, but mostly it just gives into this new concern that all fans want is their established opinions reinforced by the media instead of discovering something new.

Yeah, as a startup it was very difficult. I got support from a select few in the community that gave me a small boost, but even still you need to stay in the peripheral with fresh content. I always saw spikes of views of hundreds to thousands on a single article when I had the artist share it, but that is harder to get the further you go up the ladder. It’s also harder to keep those views as repeat visitors, especially as a new and growing blog. Out of 500 on any given article, I’d probably get 2 or 3 that might like the Facebook page to keep up with further things.

I regularly read two music blogs — this one and NoCleanSinging. Both blogs are labors of love. I think you make a living on this, noCleanSinging is a much smaller, but very influential, metal blog. I don’t have a solution but I hope you both continue to thrive.

I have had other jobs and such since starting Saving Country Music, even when I would still devote a good 40 hours to the site, and then devote another 40 or so hours to the other job. But with the exception of a few odd jobs here and there which I will still do upon occasion, I’ve been solely running the site as my primary employment since November of 2013 when Wayne Mills died.

There’s too may ads on the internet. It’s a huge problem. I don’t mind ads, but I mind lots of ads. However, I’ve had to beef up my ads recently to keep the lights on. I’d still rather shut the site down than add pop up video ads or click-thrus and such, but too many ads is becoming like a dog chasing its tail. Someone, or a group of someones needs to step in and take a strong assessment of the future of the internet, and strike an accord for a sustainable model. Not everyone has the right to attention for their website. Many websites should fail frankly, or keep their perspective small or not-for-profit. But the websites that are receiving attention and are fulfilling important functions in the marketplace need to be able to be sustainable, especially since there’s nothing replacing them, like what happened with much of print media.

I’ve heard even National Grographic, after nearly 130 years functioning as a non-profit, has been sold to Rupert Murdoch earlier this month. And while anyone would like to think ownership won’t directly impact or impede the quality of the content, we’ve already witnessed it with the Wall Street Journal: whose opinions generally didn’t reflect my own, but I nonetheless truly enjoyed reading regularly because of their reverence and command of the written word. Now, their content has dumbed down significantly (though they’re still better than, say, The Washington Post).

This is just frightening to me. I mean, I get why everyone is a fan of someone and something and, when fandom takes effect, it’s improbable to be completely impartial in your viewpoints. But I feel this broader trend goes deeper than something as innocent as an enthusiastic give-and-take between fan and entertainer. These PR firms are aggressively treating fans like commodities via all the brand name sponsorships that also percolate into everything from the merchandise to the song lyrics. Worse still, we’re seeing political affiliations and ideology stir the pot…………..resulting in this ugly feedback loop rife with anti-intellectualism in the face of all well-meaning criticism (“Music evolves! Get with the times, you dinosaur!”, “Yer juz a hater!”, “Yer jealozz!”, “If you don’t like it, don’t listen to it, move your negative ass along!”, “Yer probly just an Obama-lovin’, freedom-hatin’ city boy who lives in your mama’s basement…”, etc.)

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Heck, if not for happening upon this community (and the now-defunct The 9513), my own critical faculties wouldn’t be as sharpened. I owe it to your efforts, in part, for being more aware and engaged.

Whenever you put an extra layer of bureaucracy into the mix, you’re always running the risk of things going south. Sometimes the risk seems obvious, like with Live Nation taking over C3. Other times it may not be. Pitchfolk may be able to operate just find under its new owners. We’ll have to see. Sometimes partnerships can result in better coverage and content because the bought-out entity now has greater resources. And sometimes it’s all about survival. Selling out to a bigger company may be a better solution than shuttering.

I have no problem with advertising. As you say Trigger, it’s the bread and butter of both print and online sites. However I have a big problem with pop up ads and ads that automatically download video. Those slow down my computer and use up my data. Consumers would be less likely to turn to ad blockers if the ads didn’t have a negative effect on their web surfing experience.

Exactly. That’s why I’ve never used ads (and never would) that require the user to click through, or click out of certain things. I won’t even link to such sites that require this in the news crawl and such, even when they have a great story. We ALL must commit to a clean internet. But money is like water, and it finds it’s way through. The reason so many sites are using pop up and drop down ads is because there’s money in it, and traditional advertising isn’t paying the bills anymore.

Is SCM in danger of shutting down? God, I hope not… I’d donate, but I can’t afford it. I’ll always support you. If SCM shuts down, I guarantee there will be enough angry protestors to start the fire that incinerates all of this $hit.

I’m not looking for donations. That was not what this article was about. One of the topics I regularly cover here is how the media covers music, and that was an extension of this. It happens to be that a website like Saving Country Music falls somewhat into the “blog” category (though I try to treat it more like an online magazine that “blogs” occasionally), but this was not a call for support or anything like that. There is no plan to shutter Saving Country Music, though some of the concerns laid out in this article do affect this website, just like they’re affecting many other websites.

Hey, we need artists to fight the good fight for country music, and we also need bloggers to help spread the word. It’s a shame that music journalism has come to this, but I wish Country California all of the best. It’s guys like him, Trigger, Country Perspective, Windmills Country, Grady Smith, and Keep It Country Kids (among others) that inspired me to write. If they didn’t exist, I probably wouldn’t have a clue about underground artists, nor would I look at music the way I do now. Writing is one of my favorite things to do, and I definitely hope that guys like Trigger and the others I mentioned will continue to be active. Believe me Trigger, as long as you have something to say, there will be an audience waiting. (and I also don’t have ad blocker, but why would I? I still get a chuckle every time I see that ad for Eric Church’s new album haha)

What do you think about subscription service/subscriber fees? I could imagine having some free content with complete access for subscribers only, like what a lot of newspapers do these days. I think you’d obviously lose a lot of the casual readers (or maybe they would only read free content), but I would venture that many of your regular readers (myself included) would have no problem paying a monthly or yearly fee. In terms of subscribers wanting to influence content, I don’t really see that being an issue. I think the very reason people read sites like yours is because you are independent and not sponsored by any artist/corporation/PR firm. I’m not sure that’s the case for larger outlets like Rolling Stone as you mentioned. While the casual listener may be fine with the radio, Buzzfeed and Facebook (i.e. free stuff), the more involved music fan (like people that read your site) crave something more. I would venture they’d be willing to pay for it too.

I’m just diametrically opposed to charging readers for content, or asking readers for anything but their eyeballs. Again, these problem are affecting the internet at large. Saving Country Music is affected by these things, but the site’s still up, and I don’t intend to take it down.

One of the problems with subscriber-only content is it doesn’t get the right information to the folks that need it most. The majority of people who come to Saving Country Music every day are folks who have never been here before, or have never been here before in the past month. People take to Google or other search engines, disgruntled about what is happening in country music, or looking for something new to listen to, or looking for information on an artist they heard about, and end up here. If I put a paywall between them and the content they’re looking for, it defeats the purpose, and the effort isn’t as resounding in the greater marketplace.

I’m not saying I wouldn’t ever go to a donate or subscriber system. But it would either be a last case scenario, or if it became the accepted way to do business on the internet. Many of the newspapers, though making some revenue from subscribers, are losing readers because other sites offer the same content for free. It’s just like music. If you make it free for folks, they’re going to take it every time before paying for it. Most will, at least.

You know, I think an easy way to fix this problem would be to get rid of the single song purchase. People hear what they like and then get to spend 99 cents to a a buck and 29 to buy it. While the single song purchase is convenient in some ways (lots of great songs are on shitty albums), it would do wonders for the American consumer when it comes to developing taste if they had to sample other songs in order to decide if they wanted to shell out 10 to 15 bucks. And perhaps they’d be more inclined to seek the opinions of those who evaluate any form of art for a living.

My feelings would not be hurt if I couldn’t just drop a buck and some change every time some shitty artist happens to put out a great song that I want on my iPod.

I remember the days back in the 90’s when I’d hear a song on the radio and buy the full CD and find out the album was shit. Not all music were put out on singles and I often times wished there was a way to hear the whole thing and only buy what I wanted. Long before Mp3 files were a pipe dream. Those days made me appreciate an album as a whole piece of art and now I only buy full albums.

I certainly appreciate this blog and plenty others for helping discover new music. I certainly can’t count on radio. Its either I dig or someone points it out to me. So to that, I express my appreciation to Trigger and his blog but also everyone who’s commented to “check out this band….”. I would be OK with donating if it ever came to be, but the fact is as soon as one music blog dies, another pops up in its place. Plenty have come and gone, and I’m sure the death of one brought me here.

But that’s the difference in 2015: Some of the biggest, long-running blogs are going out-of-business, and the price of business is too high for another one to pop up and take its place. There’s always been churning in the blogsphere, but unless you have a million-dollar budget to start like Rolling Stone Country did, it’s virtually impossible to launch a new music property on the web. And even Rolling Stone Country has had its issues.

One things for certain, this site has introduced me to a lot of acts that I would’ve never heard of before like Isbell and Simpson and even Stapleton. I plan to stick with this website in the long haul so I can hopefully find more good singers in the future.

I feel their pain. I’ve been humping the Deep Blues blog since 2000. I didn’t set out to make a cent, but I used to add Amazon links that earned me enough for a book or cd each quarter which was lovely and made the job I’d built for myself a little more fun, but after music became free that ended. The number of music blogs out there now, compared to when I started is minuscule. It’s a fairly thankless job, but I’ve always felt much like Chris Johnson (Deep Blues Festival) does, that this is an under-served genre, this alt-blues stuff, and somebody has to get the word out about this music we love. And so I soldier on…

For the last 2 years I’ve been running a stoner rock website, part time for the most part but I had a great start on the new one due to my reputation on a previous blog. Both sites ran/run 100% ad free making Ad blockers useless on them. Over the past year and a half though, readership has dropped for me as PR firms are sending out their releases to the bigger sites a day or two before the smaller sites get the same info. I used to get asked to premier songs and videos all the time but my site numbers don’t compare to the Pitchforks, Vices and Brooklyn Vegan sites. I’ll keep doing it for as long as I enjoy it (or I don’t renew my domain). If a huge media site wanted to flash a few million in my face though……

Yes, one major hurdle facing independent blogs is there’s basically no support from independent labels, artists, publicists, etc. They’d love for you to review their album or artist (and they’ll choke your inbox with email requesting such, and guilting you if you don’t), but when it comes to original and exclusive content, they’re purposely excluding many independent sites, even when those sites would arguably get more important ears on their content, if not more ears because of the niche appeal of certain blogs. All publicists see is the overall traffic of a site. They don’t stop to think that there’s probably not many metal fans on Brooklyn Vegan.

Also “exclusive” content only restricts the amount of eyes and ears seeing it. It hurts the artist. The only one who benefits is the big corporate website. If fans and other sites can’t share that content, it will lack the critical mass quotient to bust through the crush of information music consumers see on a given day. Basically exclusive content is nothing more than a payoff to labels by lazy publicists. It also proves that most of music “journalism” is nothing more than a promotional arm for the industry, including not-for-profit entities such as NPR. Share an honest opinion, and you’re ostracized. Wave pom poms for artists, and they’ll advertise with you, and dish you exclusives.

I’m amazed that so many of the Texas Country artists are not more aggressive with getting Trigger and other blogs their music. Seems that the audience of Saving Country Music and other blogs would be very receptive to bands like Shane Smith, Phil Hamilton, Cody Jinks, etc.

The Texas Country scene is completely clueless when it comes to print, media, or press anything. Go look at any Texas country band’s Wikipedia page. It’s ridiculous. Saving Country Music is based out of Texas, and they have no idea I exist, and the ones that do all assume I’m in Nashville. And the people in Nashville assume I’m in Nashville. It’s because Nashville actually gives me the material I need to cover the music.

This week Willie Nelson received the Gerswin Prize at the Library of Congress in Washington. Unsolicited, I received a press pass and a photographer pass. They reached out to me. I didn’t even ask for it, and had no way to utilize it. I don’t even know how they know I exist. The Grammy’s reached out and offered me a press pass for the presentation in February. Meanwhile I can’t get the publicist for the Turnpike Troubadours to email me back when I’m looking for liner notes, and I can’t pay my way into Willie’s 4th of July picnic after I get denied for a press pass, and the venue is two miles from my house.

And people wonder why they can’t find any good coverage of Texas music.

It’s a shame so many of the bands have that attitude. Especially since like I said, I think in many ways the Texas bands are more appealing to SCM readers than 95% of what is coming out of Nashville (Isbell, Simpson, Stapleton, etc. excluded of course). I mean, a guy like Josh Ward should really be pushing you to cover his music here by giving you materials, access, interviews, whatever.

It’s not the bands at all. The job of bands and artists is to play music, not to wrangle the press. That’s the job of publicists, and bands pay them good money to do it. The problem is a lot of publicists have no clue what they’re doing. Some are excellent, amazing folks. Many other slide between apathetic and desperate. I can easily say that your average music publicist is making my job harder as opposed to easier these days.

I agree 100%. I had to stop counting the number of times I would review a band submitted album then somewhere down the road get a PR email saying “Band X signs with Label Y, Album to be released soon.” I would then submit my review to the PR firm and tell them I reviewed it and feel free to quote it in any future PR notices sent out. Most of the time any followup releases concerning the band and that album I find many quotes and none are mine.

I sat down with a label owner one day and convinced him to sign a band that I thought would fit them perfectly. They signed them and I got first dibs on all videos, streams, etc. I even got A&R credit on the label release of the album. Then the label got bigger and they handed off all PR work to an actual PR firm. The 2nd album came out and the label wanted me to once again have all first shots at news, streams etc. I even got the album ahead of the PR firm to review it. When I went to review it, I only had a paragraphs worth of stuff to say about it. As I started to write, all my creative juices came out and I wound up writing a whole lot more than I intended. When it came time for the official PR stuff to come out, not 1 single quote. That was last year. They just recently quoted me from that review for an upcoming live album by the band which I haven’t even heard yet.

Aggravating but after that I decided to do only what I wanted, when I wanted and how I wanted and not stress out over PR firms and their b.s.

I don’t really run an ad-blocker, however I admit I disable Flash in all my browsers since Flash is absolutely awful security wise. So websites that use Flash ads usually lose my eye balls.

I am sad to see Country Blogs shutting down though, especially since while streaming sites have made it incredibly easy to listen to new music, FINDING good new music can often be a pain in the ass. Most streaming sites steer you towards mainstream artists in my experience so a recommendation from a website or blog I trust means a ton to me.

Sorry to hear about California Country. I loved Fake News. Wish I could claim to see it coming but converting 3rd Coast Music from paper & ink to PDFs was simply a matter of sticking to what I know, rather than learning how to run a blog, but it turns out that ad blockers don’t work on PDFs.

I’ve been running a reviews blog for several years and it’s healthy in a small way. It’s not a hobby but it’s not a source of revenue either. There’s a slew of UK bloggers writing about Country, Americana etc.

I have a blog. It’s done through blogger, so it costs me nothing. I do it because I love music, not because I expect or even want anything out of it. And no, my stuff is not near the depth of what SCM does. I have been fortunate enough for some artists to agree to do Q&A’s. Granted, they are nowhere near mainstream, or even popular, artists. Just ones that I like and have reached out.

If I can contact the artist directly, I have had 100% success rate. If I have to go through a manager/PR/whatever the success rate goes down exponentially (though I have had success with one particular PR person).

Like I stated, I do this because I love music. I’m not a gatekeeper. I only write about stuff I like. Maybe because I don’t criticize I won’t ever go anywhere, but I don’t care. If one person becomes a fan of good music then I have succeeded.

I am a 6th grade teacher. My blog is not my meal ticket. I do it for fun in my spare time. That equals very minimal postings from me. Sometimes I have time for 10-12 posts a month, sometimes only 5 or 6. That being said, getting off the ground is next to impossible. Most of my increase in traffic comes from an artist sharing an article, as J Wallace stated. I have a few readers that follow pretty regularly, but I rarely see big views. However, I keep plodding away because I love it. Perhaps because it isn’t my income source, I’m able to keep it as a hobby and not a stress-inducer. Hopefully that helps me stay inspired to keep at it.

I’m sad to see Country California go. I credit you Trigger, Trailer over at Farce the Music, and C,M. at Country California as my three inspirations to start up Keep It Country, Kids. I tended to ramble to my friends about The Turnpike Troubadours and Sturgill Simpson nonstop, and I was pumped to see that other people not only shared my passion, they could hip other people to it as well. I can’t even claim a sliver of the reach you all have had, but I know a few Whitey Morgan, Jason Boland, and Old Crow Medicine Show fans that popped up in Northeast Ohio through my blog, so I’m proud.

Keep up the great work, Trigger. This site and the others like it are integral to the country music universe.

As I noted above, you are definitely one of my prime influences for writing, so thank you for what you do! I can understand the conflict of finding time. I also write as a hobby more so than anything, mostly because I’m college and don’t have time to devote to it full time. But either way, if it spreads the word about good music (and warns of the bad), then that’s what ultimately matters.

Thanks man, you have no idea how much that means. I am a language arts teacher (which may come as a surprise from my high number of typos lol), so inspiring people to write is something I love to do. I started Keep It Country, Kids a year after I graduated college while I was subbing and looking for a job. Back then I had all the time in the world. It’s a struggle some months now. But I’m glad to see you enjoy writing and just do it for the love of music. That’s why I do it as well, and it’s very obvious that’s why Trigger does it. Keep up the great work!

I enjoy your blog and many others. Especially when it comes to music, I like to get reviews and news about music I like instead of what the big labels want me to like. With that being said though, pop up and ad blockers have become a necessity. The majority of the time I am reading your blog and others on my cell phone from RSS feeds. But many websites have so many pop up ads that it is impossible to read a story without ad after ad popping up over the story. Every time you try to close them, another pops up, or you are taken to another page, or taken completely out of the web browser to the App Store. Pages jump around while ads load. It’s extremely irritating. And on the occasions I am trying to read something on my home computer, their is a new threat with ads that redirect to multiple web sites, or pop up with adware that you cannot dismiss without force quitting your browser.

It’s unfortunate that legitimate blog owners such as this one are having difficulties, however you should lay the blame on greedy web sites who care more about ad revenue than their customers, than blaming Apple or web browser developers who are both protecting their customers, and providing wanted features.

One of the major issues right now is that so many folks are going to websites on their phones, it’s necessitating some websites to really double up on ads. Users are far less likely to interact with advertising on mobile as opposed to a PC. So instead of losing revenue there, some sites triple up on mobile ads. But like you point out, all this does is encourage users to use Ad Blocker so they can actually read the content. It’s making the internet like a war zone.

1) NEVER start your Amazon shopping on Amazon, one should always use a banner ad like what Trigger has here. My understanding is that a couple of % of your purchase goes to the person whose banner you click. I have several blogs i read and I do that all the time. Take money from Jeff Bezos and give it to Trigger (or you other favorite bloggers)!
2) I do understand that the traditional business model for media consumption is advertiser paid – like all network television programming – or some hybrid of subscriber and advertising – think your traditional newspaper. Having said that, I don’t think anyone has really figured out what advertising model works online (outside paid search – see Google). Pre internet I get why Macy’s or Target would take out an ad or provide an insert. However when I read, say, the New York times online and a pop up comes up with say a 30 second commercial for a watch, a car or an investment firm, my question is (a) in the entire history of online web content, how many people have clicked on an article on the NY Times, had a pop up video come up for a BMW, and say ‘wow I really want to watch a one minute long commercial’ and of that small universe how many have said ‘I’m running out to my nearest BMW dealer right now!’. I get why the NY Times needs ad revenue, but I just don’t understand what the advertisors are thinking why this is effective marketing. Again I accept that ads help pay for content, – I know that Coors, McDonalds and Viagra are paying CBS so they can broadcast the NFL to me for free each Sunday – but there seems to be a better way that is less obtrusive online, that gives me something I am interested in and that if there is ‘value’, that increases what they can pay to say the NY Times or SCM.
3) For another thread, but the war on how we pay for music is over, streaming has won, and I don’t think on balance that is a bad thing. I’m not sure how to get from here to there, but at some point I think online content needs to move to a Spotify like system. I for one have only two things on the web I pay for – the NY Times and the Wall Street Journal (the latter of which my employer pays). I read dozens of blogs, and I do feel like I would pay some number greater than $0 to read them, but I don’t think I would pay $10/month for each of them. However if there was a ‘BlogSpotify’ where you paid $10/month for access to the blog universe, BlogSpotify could then divvy up the subscription stream sort of like how Spotify does (some micro payment for each page view, like how Spotify pays per stream). I’ve no idea how large those payment streams can be but they are of course $0 today so this can be accretive.

Hypothetically, web advertising is supposed to be more catered to individual users and should be dramatically more effective than ads on TV for example. Google and other ad fulfillers know who you are, your age, your sex, your browsing habits, what type of OS you use, and caters ads to what it thinks your interests are. However in 2015, something dramatically changed, and I’m not sure how or why. Google and others have just sort of dropped the ball. And now that there’s so many other ad choices out there, and ones that do a better job and have more options than Google, advertisers are using the more-effective networks. However these other networks don’t have the type of insight into web users as Google does. So in the end, it’s like everyone’s seeing BMW ads, whether they have any appeal to them or not because that’s the default. The algorithms seem completely out of whack.

As for subscribing, you bring up a very important point, and yet another reason SCM hasn’t moved to a subscriber model. Someone may be willing to spend $5 a month to be an SCM subscriber, but if you have to subscribe to all the blogs you might read, all of a sudden it gets very expensive. And then all of a sudden the internet is no longer free, and folks are dishing out money left and right. That’s not fair to anyone. I believe in a free internet, and am willing to fight for it. That’s part of what this article was about. I set up a subscriber system, and all of a sudden I’m part of the problem. Advertising has supported print since the 1800’s, and it supported a lot of the internet up until about 2014. It wasn’t as lucrative as print, but it was getting there. And then the bottom seemed to fall out of everything, and were losing valuable web properties because of it.

Trigger, given your targeted content and reader demographics, how difficult is it for you to sell hard coded (not ad served) sponsor ads similar to the right hand nav ad you’re displaying for Eric Church’s album? Are advertisers not interested or is it a case where you don’t have the time or skill set to sell directly to advertisers so you have to settle for ad serving networks? Have you surveyed your readership to pinpoint demographics and then put this information directly in front of a select group of advertisers whose customers enjoy country music?

The issue with direct advertising is probably a little bit of both. I’m a terrible salesman, and frankly, don’t really care to make money off the site beyond trying to keep up with expenses. In fact, I hate making money off the site and feel very personally conflicted about it. And by the way, for some folks out there who may be saying to themselves, “Why don’t you just do this for the love of the music?” Saving Country Music has grown so big, the expenses themselves are exorbitant. Just to pay for the server each month is like pulling teeth, and still, even though I’m paying for this massive server, the site kept crashing during the CMA Awards because there were so many folks coming here. Not trying to brag, but SCM is a bigger site than it gets credit for, and it takes a significant amount of revenue just to keep the lights on. This is a problem duplicated on sites all across the internet at the moment that are ostensibly not-for-profit, but still must generate revenue to survive.

If I have to choose between trying to sell advertising to folks, or to write another article, I’m going to choose to write another article every time. That said, I have put out effort to attract hard advertisers, but frankly, a lot of the labels, artists, and bands who could benefit from it, including many who spend money on advertising, just will not advertise with SCM. It may be a symptom of why pay for the cow when you can get the milk for free? The artists, labels, festivals, and other folks I support the most have never spent a red penny on this site. Instead it’s Eric Church who is reaching out to me unsolicited. Go figure. I know it seems strange to a lot of folks, but where SCM finds the most respect is in the mainstream. Even the folks I criticize still see the value in what I do, they read the site, and they’re even at times willing to support it. It’s independent labels who are all trying to puff their chest out and look bigger than they are that seem to want no business with SCM beyond me writing glowing reviews for their artists, which is free advertising for them.

If I had a full-time salesman, things might be different, but it’s sort of a cart before the horse thing. Salespeople don’t work for free.

But beyond SCM—which is what I wanted the focus to be here—if sites that are getting hundreds of thousands of unique hits a month and are fulfilling a specific, important, and valued function to the community cannot be sustainable, then it’s a much bigger problem than just SCM or even music blogs. The economics of the internet are completely out of whack at the moment, and this is an especially new problem in 2015 due to so many mobile users, the proliferation of ad blockers, and other factors.

Okay, here’s my comments on this, after thinking about it for a day or two:

1. It genuinely sucks that most blogs are dying out, but it sadly doesn’t surprise me – with rare exception actually being able to support yourself through ad revenue is painfully thin, and if your numbers top out (your reader base isn’t constantly expanding), just keeping the lights on year after year is tough. I’ve been running my blog for the past three or so years and I can easily say it’s never brought the traffic outside of certain posts that have gotten reshared on Reddit. Fortunately, my traffic has ballooned thanks to…

2. YouTube. Just to give an idea of numbers, I get approximately 3.5 times the number of hits per month on YouTube than I do at my blog itself. It also tends to pay considerably better – and really, considering my channel is just video versions of what I’m writing, it’s fascinating to see how many more people are gravitating to videos over text. Now part of this is that YouTube has an easier aggregation and search system that’ll stand out more through Google than your average blog, especially if you get more subscribers. But that leads to the third issue…

3. Country music’s web presence. Quite frankly, the lessons that hip-hop, indie rock, electronica, pop, and some subgenres of metal learned, country (along with a few other genres like bluegrass or jazz) hasn’t: if you want to sustain and grow your audience, the internet is the best possible tool at your disposal. And yet with the exception of a couple upstart artists who have finally gotten that, most country acts haven’t. Forget the fact that one of your biggest ever country acts (Garth Brooks) has basically shunned YouTube (way to ensure your legacy is forgotten by my generation, dude), when I realized that for most indie country artists I’ll have on average three to five times their subscribers, you realize country’s got a larger web problem that starts with the artists and their teams not doing enough of their homework.

And here’s the thing: I’d argue there is a demand: I get comments saying how I basically convinced them that there is quality in the genre beyond the mainstream and am giving the genre legitimacy by behind one of the very few (if any) who covers it consistently. There’s also a demographic demand – outside of pop, my country reviews tend to net a higher than average female audience, which is only a good thing (especially when you compare to the heavily male dominated metal or hip-hop scenes). But your average country review from me will get on average 10-45% of your standard hip-hop or metal review, and when you factor in pop it’s even less – that’s not a good sign. My point ties less into the failure of country blogs not just because content has moved to more image/video based format (although that is certainly a part of it), but also because the majority of country music artists haven’t cracked the code to an online breakthrough – and without the artists getting it, it’s that much harder for bloggers and critics to get in unless you know the right spots (SCM, Farce, or have label contacts that feed you upcoming artists).

And you want to know the hilarious thing? The country artists that have reached out to me the most online (outside of Whitney Rose and Karen Jonas, who are just awesome) are Kelsea Ballerini and Jake Owen (the latter follows me on Twitter, and that’s just WEIRD). The pop country artists are starting to get it, whereas with hip-hop and indie rock and electronica, it was the indie acts who got it most first. That’s telling.

Not to discount your experience or the numbers, but this issue is not even close to just a country music problem, or even a music problem in general. Country music may be having a harder time of it than others, I don’t know. But that’s why I quoted a guy who runs a hip-hop blog in this piece as opposed to another country blogger. Grantland covers music, but they’re more a sports and lifestyle blog, and they’re gone. Pitchfork felt like they needed to partner with a bigger entity, and they curiously avoid country like it’s the ugly girl at the dance.

As for producing video content, that may be great for some, but with my limited experience it has been the most disastrous, most hurtful thing I have ever done on the site. Basically it just became a spring board for people who hate me to launch personal attacks, and to stimulate death threats and threats against friends and loved ones of mine. I can’t even show my face because someone will take it, make a meme out of it, and send to family members of mine with a note of how they are going to kill me. And if you don’t believe me, I can send you the files. My guess is the idiots who are too stupid to read can still interact with video media, and then they’ll spend months obsessing over me. I have to be like a superhero or something and hide my true identity to protect my loved ones. I can write the most salacious things and nobody seems to take it too seriously (except maybe Shooter fans0< but you put it in video form, and people are sending grizzly death threats to my family members. Maybe I could do some stuff with video in the future, but it would have to be very high-production value type stuff, not just reciting written copy on camera, which once again brings it back to money.

“This week Willie Nelson received the Gerswin Prize at the Library of Congress in Washington. Unsolicited, I received a press pass and a photographer pass. They reached out to me. I didn”™t even ask for it, and had no way to utilize it. I don”™t even know how they know I exist. The Grammy”™s reached out and offered me a press pass for the presentation in February.”

…hey, can i get that Grammy’s pass?…i’ve nothing going in February. seriously though, all that must felt good. the Willie Nelson pass…Willie, SCM, Almost Out of Gas (i’m assuming)…that’d been a great story.

Yet another brilliantly written article, Trig. I was on a Buddhist meditation & photography retreat last weekend. It was my first retreat and quite a revelation. It was co-led by a very prominent and successful photographer here in New Zealand. We had a conversation one day about how his business is essentially dying. With Instagram everyone thinks they are a professional photographer, with blogging everyone thinks they are a professional writer. As much as I love the internet, it’s also giving a voice to people who don’t necessarily deserve to be heard. God, I’m so sick of shitty writing!

There are several reasons I love SCM so much: a) It constantly introduces me to new and exciting artists I’ve never have heard about otherwise b) The writing, Trig. You are such a fucking brilliant writer and when I grow up I want to be just like you c) Your level of engagement. I love how you respond to comments and engage with your audience cos you care.

Unfortunately, this seems to be the case with music as well.. Now everyone can be a musician and be heard. There is so much noise on the internet that the line between good and bad music has been severely blurred. In my experience, musicians (and non-musician folks with an elevated interest in quality music) seem to be the only ones left with any taste. The masses are fed what these major labels know will sell, and the average listener doesn’t have the ear to know the difference.

Quality, unbiased music journalism is crucial in making sure quality music is appreciated and exposed to people that may need some direction.

I wish you well Trigger and hope that mankind can develop a model that will work not only for music sites like yours, but also for musicians.

P.s. You will be my first stop when looking for reviews of my first record. I just hope you choose to do so!

I have a small artist promo/management company. I have my own website. I cover a few shows, festivals, do some interviews, blog, and have had a video blog for a little while. Video blog I have on my own website and posted to my YouTube page. I just found it easier to cover things I wanted to do in depth, and have a more verbal way of saying it, instead of print.
Personally I’ve made a little bit off of country music, the company, and the sight. Isn’t my main goal. The experiences and the people I’ve talked to or met were always worth more than the dollar amount. That is the main reason I read this sight and interact with you. Your passion comes through with every piece. I don’t have it in me to be negative, another reason I come here. Even when you are have the knowledge to back it up.
I love country music with every fiber of my being. I would do it for free if I had to in some way just to contribute my little piece of whatever I can to the betterment of the genre.
I’m reading this sight from a treestand outside of buffalo, ny in a snowstorm. Glad you’re here and what you do. Gives me enjoyment.

That reminds me of two of my favorites which just fizzled away-“Only Solitaire” and “Capn Marvel’s Rock Record Music Bonanza”-both reviewed mostly classic rock. “Only Solitaire” was the more serious one (and the owner, George Starostin, really seemed to know his music, of many genres-I believe he’s started up again at a different site but his old one still maintains its presence). The reviews were informed and informative, and both were funny, though sometimes I think George’s was unintentional (tiny language idiosyncrasies, he’s Russian, I think). I still read the archives-Capn Marvel’s isn’t very large so it doesn’t take long-Starostin’s is huuuuggge, so I’ve never yet made it all the way through one time. They both started up way back in the days of floppy disks and even vinyl, so that’s pretty archaic, but the reviews are interestng and intelligent and very often witty.

Trigger, you might be interested in some of Starostin’s random replies to irate fanboys/fangirls to whose favorite artist or album he didn’t give an unqualified “excellent” (I still haven’t quite figured out his raring system). This, even after a disclaimer on every page that the review is not from the POV of a fan (I believe the only group he admits any bias towards are The Beatles, if he must have a bias towards a musical artist or group, he couldn’t choose a better one, they innovated so much of rock and the sub-genres it splintered into).

[…] Trigger lamented in a recent post on his important and impressive site Saving Country Music, “The Death of the Great American Music Blog.” There have been a number to go by the wayside in 2015 as writers find that adblockers are […]

I run a blog called the Style of Sound and over the last 18-months I’ve been tracking music blogs and publications across all genres. What I’ve found from a data-driven perspective is that independent music blogs are indeed disppearing and becoming a thing of the past.

One only has to take a look at this chart on Google Trends to see that each year fewer and fewer people are searching for the term ‘music blogs’:

If you pop in the names of your favourite music blogs, you’ll also likely see a downward trend.

But this doesn’t mean people aren’t interested in music blogs anymore. Looking at the independent blogs who are still ‘alive’, their content is still being actively shared amongst music ‘super fans’, something which is great as it’s these folks who are more likely to help spread the word about new acts vs your average msuic fan.

Speaking to other music bloggers, one of the issues that keeps on cropping up is that we’re all trying to find a way to monetise our work, something which is becoming increasingly more difficult. Plus, a lot of music writers don’t want to necessary ‘sell out’.